There’s an updated Lightroom 4 version of these instructions in the Knowledgebase.
Extract from Adobe Lightroom 2 – The Missing FAQ
Yes, in fact it’s a very good idea to do so, and just have one or two top level folders. If Lightroom ever loses track of all of your photos, perhaps as a result of a hard drive failure, you will only need to re-link the top level folder and that will cascade through the rest.
So how do we go from this slightly nondescript tangle of folders…
to the tidy hierarchy….?
Right-click on the current top level folder and select ‘Add Parent Folder’. This doesn’t import new photos, just adds an additional hierarchy level to your Folders panel (and does a lot more behind the scenes…).
Keep clicking on the top level folder until you see the folder you’re looking for.
If you go too far and want to remove a top level folder, right-click on that folder and choose ‘Promote Subfolders’.
This does the opposite of ‘Add Parent Folder’, and will ask for confirmation before removing that top level folder.
Selecting ‘Remove…’ from the right-click menu gives you the choice of promoting the subfolders, but also gives you the option to remove all of the subfolders and their images from the catalog too, which you wouldn’t want to do when simply tidying up the hierarchy.
mike says
January 12, 2009 at 7:01 pmI keep my images on an external hard drive as I use a laptop. When I right click on a folder that is on the external drive, the option add parent folder is not presented. This option only appears in relation to images that are on my laptop. Is there any way to add parent folder when the folders are on an external drive.
[Is there a parent drive on the external drive, other than the root of the drive? What’s the full path on the external drive? – VB]
mike says
January 12, 2009 at 9:58 pmNot that I know of. Its just my main external drive and it goes Mac HD then Lacie External, and in that external drive there is my main lightroom folder and under that the lightroom catalogue and image files are at the same level. I have both lightroom 1 and 2 installed if that makes any difference. I have checked the lightroom catalogue on a portable drive I use and the add parent folder option doesnt appear there either. The options that appear on a right click are: move../show../get info/rename/create folder inside/remove/save metadata/synchronize../update../export..
[Drop by http://www.lightroomforums.net Mike, and we’ll give you a hand to figure it out. It’s easier to chat there! – VB]
Larry says
January 19, 2009 at 2:48 amSame problem as Mike above except that my data files are on an internal Raid “E” in my PC However I do already have a top level folder that contains all my individual folders per shoot… is that the same thing?
[Drop by the forum and run that past me again Larry… – VB]